If any filmmaker desperately needed to fail, it's del Toro.

Rating: Null/10 (13 July 2013)

The greatness of Guillermo del Toro as a filmmaker is his ability to tap into the pure imagination of childhood. The failing of del Toro as a storyteller is that he's not grown up enough to discipline that imagination. He embraces fantastic ideas and marvelous imagery but, left to his own devices, his films falter on simplistic and underdeveloped characters, boring and meandering plots, clichés piled on top of clichés and an unwillingness to get everything to make sense. Like a child, del Toro doesn't notice if he's being repetitive or nonsensical or erratic or if his story isn't going anywhere.
Pacific Rim is probably the best looking giant robot vs. giant monster movie ever made. The special effects and fight scenes are remarkable to watch. Outside of those scenes, this film isn't any better and might be a bit worse than the average man-in-suit Godzilla flick from Toho. Frankly, the prologue where del Toro world-builds the setting of this motion picture is more interesting and more dramatically compelling than everything that follows.
After years of Mankind using giant robots to kill giant monsters coming out of a dimensional rift on the ocean floor, a fallen hero is resurrected to help in a final attempt to end the war. A bunch of stockier-than-stock characters are introduced. There's a tired subplot with one of the guys from It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia. Big battles ensue. The good guys win. Granted, most folks are looking for stuff like Pacific Rim to be a combination of Mamet, Shakespeare and Steinbeck, but there's not a moment of alleged drama or comedy here you haven't seen many, many, many times before.
But del Toro can't even manage his clichés right. He spectacularly introduces his main hero, played by Charlie Hunnam, and sets up the character's personal challenge. Then del Toro relegates his hero to bystander while he elevates a series of secondary characters to the fore. That might have been bold if their stories were at all entertaining or original. Those secondary character arcs, however, are arbitrarily manufactured, introduced and mostly left unresolved. This could have been Hunnam's big shot at movie stardom. Instead, you'll barely remember he was in the movie.
By the standards of summer blockbusters, Pacific Rim is unexceptional but okay. Maybe if it bombs, folks will stop letting del Toro run wild and force him to marry his amazing vision to some cold, hard, practical thought.